Bomb hits Tel Aviv amid Gaza diplomacy

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A bomb struck an Israeli bus near the nation's military headquarters in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, wounding 10 people and complicating major diplomatic efforts to forge a truce between Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers.

The attack came as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton shuttled between Jerusalem and the West Bank to help piece together a deal to end Israel's weeklong offensive against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 130 Palestinians. Militant rocket fire into Israel has killed five Israelis. Clinton was due to travel later to Egypt, which is mediating in the crisis.

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"What does it say about the future of the (truce) talks? I leave it to (the senior officials), but this doesn't add anything," Yitzhak Aharonovich, Israel's minister of internal security, told Army Radio.

The bus exploded around noon on one of the coastal city's busiest arteries, near the Tel Aviv museum, the district courthouse and across from an entrance to Israel's national defense headquarters.

The bus was completely charred, its side windows blown out and glass scattered on the asphalt. The wounded were evacuated and blood was splattered on the sidewalk.

"We suddenly heard a huge explosion and immediately knew it was a terror attack," said Nir Zano, 35. "I saw someone running in to carry out a woman who was injured."

Aharonovitch said the device was placed inside the bus by a man who then disembarked. The explosion took place while the bus was in movement, he said.

Police set up roadblocks across the city trying to apprehend the attacker.

"We strongly believe that this was a terror attack," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. He said three of the 10 wounded were moderately to seriously hurt.

In Gaza, the Tel Aviv bombing was praised from mosque loudspeakers, while Hamas' television interviewed people praising the attack as a return of militants' trademark tactics.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum welcomed it.

"We consider it a natural response to the occupation crimes and the ongoing massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip," he told The Associated Press.

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, who heard the explosion from his Tel Aviv office, called it "an escalation."

The cease-fire efforts come with thousands of Israeli ground troops massed on the Gaza border, awaiting a possible order to invade.

After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem Tuesday night, Clinton conferred with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank on Wednesday morning and was due to travel later to Cairo, which is mediating in the crisis.

The two sides had seemed on the brink of a deal Tuesday following a swirl of diplomatic activity also involving U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi. But sticking points could not be resolved as talks — and violence — stretched into the night.

Dozens of civilians are among the more than 130 Palestinians killed in a week of fighting. Four Israeli civilians and a soldier have been killed by rocket fire — a toll possibly kept down by a U.S.-funded rocket defense system that has shot down hundreds of Gaza projectiles.

The Tel Aviv bus bombed Wednesday was relatively empty during the explosion, which explains the relatively low number of casualties. The bombing was the first in the coastal city since April 2006, when a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 11 people at a sandwich stand near the city's old central bus station. A bomb left at a bus stand in Jerusalem last year killed one person.

More than 1,000 Israelis were killed during the violent Palestinian uprising in the last decade in bombings and shooting attacks. More than 5,000 Palestinians were killed as well.

Readers' Comments (11)

Hamas (Iran) just couldn’t wait to try out their new arsenal of long-range rockets; Excited about being able to hit Tel-Aviv for the first time, they soon set-up launch sites next to Mosques and Hospitals and Schools (human shields) and started firing away.

Much to their chagrin they discovered that the farther the target, the more difficult is was to score a hit…..then add to that the new Israeli rocket defense system known as ‘Iron Dome’.

Whenever it was determined that one of the new Fajr-5 rockets was actually coming close to a population area then the Israelis would engage it with their Iron Dome defense.

Meanwhile, the Israelis were pounding the living hell out of Hamas in the Gaza Strip by utilizing some new intelligence and targeting techniques of their own….

When Hamas came to the realization that they were on the short end of the stick and that nobody other than other Muslims were feeling sorry for them then they started talking about a ‘possible cease-fire’ and have attempted to ‘negotiate’ a settlement that includes them not firing any more rockets.

Well….the Israelis know that they can shoot down any rockets fired that are a real threat, severely diminishing that action as any kind of a bargaining chip.

All the while the Israelis have been destroying rocket storage facilities, bomb-making factories and Hamas gathering places (with Hamas saying, “WTF?!? How did they know where we had all our stuff!?!”).

It was interesting to hear the British Foreign Minister chide the Israelis for using ‘disproportionate force’ in their response to Hamas rocket attacks.

The Israeli Ambassador to Britain pointed out that there had been twice as many rockets fired into tiny Israel than German V-1 & V-2 Rockets that hit Britain during all of World War II……..and that the Allies leveled every German city with their bombers (killing hundreds of thousands) and continue to occupy Germany to the present day…….no comeback from the Brits.

‘Disproportionate force’ is part of the new Liberal/Leftist Lexicon to suggest that should one dare to fight back its somehow supposed to be ‘fair’ (and hence…never ‘solved’….another Left-Wing code-word to imply guilt for doing what everyone with half-a-brain knows is right.

‘Bomber’ Harris of the RAF used ‘disproportionate force’ against Germany….his famous words to explain it all were, “They (the Germans) have sowed the wind…..now they’re going to reap the whirlwind.” The Israelis have Hamas tight where they want them…..isolated politically, neutered militarily and desperate to return to the status-quo so they can live to fight another day……..they’re on the ropes.

Now is the time to finish off Hamas….Israelis have called out their reserves, not only from within Israel but from around the world as well.

Expect to see a quick thrust into Gaza and a lot of buildings destroyed along the southern border with Egypt….with a lot of cement trucks blocking up the smuggling tunnels….and maybe even an occupation of the same.

The Israelis have a real opportunity to ‘solve the problem’….let’s hope they seize it………

Another cowardly act by a group who wears masks and executes people in the streets of Gaza and then drags thier bodies through the streets. How in gods name do they expoect to garner any international sympathy when thier own leaders do nothing to stop this brutality? Animals plain and simple. If I were Israel I would line up the bull dozers and push everything from Gaza into the sea!!

you leave out two "cogent" facts; germany & britian were in a declared war and israel is in occupation of palestinian territories violatiing UN security council resolutions. you might not like nor agree with either of those FACTS but they are relevant.

It is funny to see Tom in Delaware comparing Israel to the Allies in WW II since Israel like Nazi Germany is an illegal occupier. In fact Netanyahu is portrayed around the world in an SS uniform as he sadistically enacts his final solution for the Palestinians. We tried diplomacy to get Hitler to end his occupations and it failed. If Israel wants to be loved in the world it should return the stolen land.

So these 2 states are fighting for the millionth time. Who cares. How about reporting whats going on in are country, Everyday the top news story is outside the US. Only a hand full of people care about other country's.

you leave out two "cogent" facts; germany & britian were in a declared war and israel is in occupation of palestinian territories violatiing UN security council resolutions. you might not like nor agree with either of those FACTS but they are relevant.

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What terrirtory is Israel occupying 'illegally'?

What is a Palestinian and when did their history begin?

It was the very first UN resolution on the creation of Israel that the Arab States violated......

And next time, little boy, try not deflecting from one topic to the next when you've had your ass handed to you in a debate.....infant.

your pretend ignorance, giving benefit of doubt that you do know better, that the US government is signatory to UN resoutions & accords concerning your questions. even your hero ronald reagan recognized these facts in his "reagan plan" which has become the defacto US foreign policy position of every administration since. The Reagan Plan: U.S. Policy for Peace in the Middle East - Council ...

Tom in Delaware, you really do need to learn some history to replace the Exodus movie propaganda/lies. Palestinians are those who originated in Palestine, the land historically defined as between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Today's Palestinians have been shown genetically to descend from those who lived there before the Biblical Hebrew invasions. In 1944 the Stern Gang, a Jewish terror group, declared war on Britain and requested money from the Nazis to fight them. The UN divided Palestine roughly equally into a Jewish State and an Arab State in 1947 despite the fact that Jews were just one third of the population and owned 6% of the land. The Zionists made it clear they wanted all of Palestine and began using terror groups to ethnically cleanse out the native Palestinians who had lived there thousands of years. Arab armies came to their rescue but were not as well-armed as the Israeli military. Then in 1967 Israel started the land-grabbing war to occupy all of Palestine. Their settlement expansion shows they intend to keep all the stolen land.